The First Violin Part 58

"Well, Friedhelm," he asked, after a pause, during which the drawn and tense look upon his face relaxed somewhat, "what have you to say to the man who has let you think him honest for three years?"

"Whom I know, and ever have known, to be an honest man."

He laughed.

"There are degrees and grades even in honesty. One kind of honesty is lower than others. I am honest now because my sin has found me out, I can't keep up appearances any longer."

"Pooh! do you suppose that deceives me?" said I, contemptuously. "Me, who have known you for three years. That would be a joke, but one that no one will enjoy at my expense."

A momentary expression of pleasure unutterable flashed across his face and into his eyes; then was repressed, as he said:

"You must listen to reason. Have I not told you all along that my life had been spoiled by my own fault?--that I had disqualified myself to take any leading part among men?--that others might advance, but I should remain where I was? And have you not the answer to all here? You are a generous soul, I know, like few others. My keenest regret now is that I did not tell you long ago how things stood, but it would have cost me your friends.h.i.+p, and I have not too many things to make life sweet to me."

"Eugen, why did you not tell me before? I know the reason; for the very same reason which prevents you from looking me in the eyes now, and saying, 'I am guilty. I did that of which I am accused,' because it is not true. I challenge you; meet my eyes, and say, 'I am guilty!'"

He looked at me; his eyes were dim with anguish. He said:

"Friedel, I--can not tell you that I am innocent."

"I did not ask you to do so. I asked you to say you were guilty, and on your soul be it if you lie to me. That I could never forgive."

Again he looked at me, strove to speak, but no word came. I never removed my eyes from his; the pause grew long, till I dropped his hands and turned away with a smile.

"Let a hundred busybodies raise their clamoring tongues, they can never divide you and me. If it were not insulting I should ask you to believe that every feeling of mine for you is unchanged, and will remain so as long as I live."

"It is incredible. Such loyalty, such--Friedel, you are a fool!"

His voice broke.

"I wish you could have heard Miss Wedderburn sing her English song after you were gone. It was called, 'What would You do, Love?' and she made us all cry."

"Ah, Miss Wedderburn! How delightful she is."

"If it is any comfort to you to know, I can a.s.sure you that she thinks as I do. I am certain of it."

"Comfort--not much. It is only that if I ever allowed myself to fall in love again, which I shall not do, it would be with Miss Wedderburn."

The tone sufficiently told me that he was much in love with her already.

"She is bewitching," he added.

"If you do not mean to allow yourself to fall in love with her," I remarked, sententiously, "because it seems that 'allowing' is a matter for her to decide, not the men who happen to know her."

"I shall not see much more of her. I shall not remain here."

As this was what I had fully expected to hear, I said nothing, but I thought of Miss Wedderburn, and grieved for her.

"Yes, I must go forth from hence," he pursued. "I suppose I ought to be satisfied that I have had three years here. I wonder if there is any way in which a man could kill all trace of his old self; a man who has every desire to lead henceforth a new life, and be at peace and charity with all men. I suppose not--no. I suppose the brand has to be carried about till the last; and how long it may be before that 'last' comes!"

I was silent. I had put a good face upon the matter and spoken bravely about it. I had told him that I did not believe him guilty--that my regard and respect were as high as ever, and I spoke the truth. Both before and since then he had told me that I had a b.u.mp of veneration and one of belief ludicrously out of proportion to the exigencies of the age in which I lived.

Be it so. Despite my cheerful words, and despite the belief I did feel in him, I could not help seeing that he carried himself now as a marked man. The free, open look was gone; a blight had fallen upon him, and he withered under it. There was what the English call a "down" look upon his face, which had not been there formerly, even in those worst days when the parting from Sigmund was immediately before and behind us.

In the days which immediately followed the scene at the concert I noticed how he would set about things with a kind of hurried zeal, then suddenly stop and throw them aside, as if sick of them, and fall to brooding with head sunk upon his breast, and lowering brow; a state and a spectacle which caused me pain and misery not to be described. He would begin sudden conversations with me, starting with some question, as:

"Friedel, do you believe in a future state?"

"I do, and I don't. I mean to say that I don't know anything about it."

"Do you know what my idea of heaven would be?"

"Indeed, I don't," said I, feebly endeavoring a feeble joke. "A place where all the fiddles are by Stradivarius and Guanarius, and all the music comes up to Beethoven."

"No; but a place where there are no mistakes."

"No mistakes?"

"_Ja wohl!_ Where it would not be possible for a man with fair chances to spoil his whole career by a single mistake. Or, if there were mistakes, I would arrange that the punishment should be in some proportion to them--not a large punishment for a little sin, and _vice versa_."

"Well, I should think that if there is any heaven there would be some arrangement of that kind."

"As for h.e.l.l," he went on, in a low, calm tone which I had learned to understand meant with him intense earnestness, "there are people who wonder that any one could invent a h.e.l.l. My only wonder is why they should have resorted to fire and brimstone to enhance its terrors when they had the earth full of misery to choose from."

"You think this world a h.e.l.l, Eugen?"

"Sometimes I think it the very nethermost h.e.l.l of h.e.l.ls, and I think if you had my feelings you would think so too. A poet, an English poet (you do not know the English poets as you ought, Friedhelm), has said that the fiercest of all h.e.l.ls is the failure in a great purpose. I used to think that a fine sentiment; now I sometimes wonder whether to a man who was once inclined to think well of himself it may not be a much fiercer trial to look back and find that he has failed to be commonly honest and upright. It is a nice little distinction--a moral wire-drawing which I would recommend to the romancers if I knew any."

Once and only once was Sigmund mentioned between us, and Eugen said:

"Nine years, were you speaking of? No--not in nineteen, nor in ninety-nine shall I ever see him again."

"Why?"

"The other night, and what occurred then, decided me. Till then I had some consolation in thinking that the blot might perhaps be wiped out--the shame lived down. Now I see that that is a fallacy. With G.o.d's help I will never see him nor speak to him again. It is better that he should forget me."

His voice did not tremble as he said this, though I knew that the idea of being forgotten by Sigmund must be to him anguish of a refinement not to be measured by me.

I bided my time, saying nothing. I at least was too much engrossed with my own affairs to foresee the cloud then first dawning on the horizon, which they who looked toward France and Spain might perhaps perceive.

It had not come yet--the first crack of that thunder which rattled so long over our land, and when we saw the dingy old Jager Hof at one end of the Hofgarten, and heard by chance the words of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, no premonition touched us. My mind was made up, that let Eugen go when and where he would, I would go with him.

I had no ties of duty, none of love or of ambition to separate me from him; his G.o.d should be my G.o.d, and his people my people; if the G.o.d were a jealous G.o.d, dealing out wrath and terror, and the people should dwindle to outcasts and pariahs, it mattered not to me. I loved him.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

Nein, langer kann ich diesen Kampf nicht kampfen, Den Riesenkampf der Pflicht.